An irregular exploration of the struggle between the power of rational discourse and the scientific method on one hand, and the forces of superstition and dogma on the other.
James Hrynyshyn is a freelance science journalist based in western North Carolina, where he tries to put degrees in marine biology and journalism to good use.
Author's site: cyamid.netPenetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops.
--- H. L. Mencken
By doubting we come to inquiry; and through inquiry we perceive truth.
--- Peter Abelard
Undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance.
-- Richard Dawkins
As for evolution, it happened. Deal with it.
-- Michael Shermer.
I would think that after 40 years of research, if you haven't changed your mind at least once on something significant, you're missing the point of science.
Perhaps it isn't fair to make fun of the social sciences, and I know behavioral ecology has its merits, but can you believe people get paid to study how men and women hook up? From New Scientist we learn that:...
From the "everything you thought you knew about X is wrong" files: an exposé on exercise. Seems there really is no evidence that working out or running hard will help you lose weight. Instead, it all comes down to diet....
Wal-Mart scares me on the best of days, but not quite like this. Seems there was a two-year-old who "had a fit" when he came across a Wal-Mart Halloween display that came to life before his innocent little eyes:...
We'll never know what role, if any, the mockery of the New Atheists had in the decision taken yesterday by the Toronto Catholic District School Board to let the girls in their charge get the HPV vaccine. But for once,...
The best line from the Emmy's on Sunday night was Stephen Colbert, replying to Jon Stewart's suggestion that award ceremonies might bewasteful and bad for the environment:...
It's another of those infamous positive feedback loops, in which a warming Arctic melts the permafrost, turning a methane sink into a methane (and CO2) source.
"Born Again Atheist," "Happy Heathen" and other anti-religious T-shirts and bumper stickers are increasingly seen on the streets. But hard data is scarce to come by/
Everyone, even Wired magazine is jumping on the "news" from the European Space Agency that the Northwest Passage is open, right across the Arctic Archipelago. Which is odd because American researchers made the same announcement earlier this summer. We need...
This is not good. A report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme says toxic pollutants, presumably estrogen mimics and other organochlorines, are skewing the sex ratio in Greenland....
Monday we heard that a group of rogue Makah Indians killed a gray whale without going through the red tape that they're supposed to (or bothering to land it). Tuesday comes a new study that shows the eastern Pacific gray...
Why are so many economists so dismissive of attempts to do something about climate change? Adam Finkel, a regulatory law expert at the University of Pennsylvania, has a wonderful take on that question, in a comment posted at The Intersection,...
Among the axioms of the day is that we live in a time of change, and those changes are taking place at breakneck speed and accelerating. So rapid are the changes that science fiction writer William Gibson has given up...
The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions,
Read the Science Creative Quarterly's list of 15 statements that are as close to being true as we can get without invoking dogma. You won't learn much, but I might win an iPod, allowing my wife and me easy access...